The development of a continuous improvement framework for long-term partnering relationships

The sub-optimal performance of the global construction sector in the last two decades has led to its scrutiny. Accordingly, improvements in the efficiency and competitiveness of the industry through reforms in contracting, tendering, design process, and other areas had been advocated. This consequently led to steady flow of research, reports and analyses on the nature of the industry, its various components, systems and structures. One of the key findings is the effective use and management of inter-organisational project teams in enhancing project success, thereby resulting in enormous interest in collaborative approaches such as partnering. However, when new initiatives and techniques are introduced, the challenges of quantifying their impact on performance improvement arise. The difficulty of the evaluation increases with complexity, duration and multitude of parties involved in the procurement process. This paper aims at describing the methodology proposed for a PhD research underway to develop a continuous improvement framework for long-term partnering relationships. The methodology adopted for the research is a hypothetico-deductive approach that comprises of two main stages. First, the framework is conceptualised from the synthesis of literature and preliminary interviews while the second stage involves the empirical testing of the framework using triangulated methods for collecting and analysing data. The framework will consider the complete whole life cycle of a construction project; planning and design, construction and operational stages.